The 7 foundations to becoming a better content creator and growing your business in 2018

As we start 2018, I wanted to share with you 7 tips I learnt from these 7 mentors that allowed me to focus and take my content business to the next level. If you are an Influencer or a Content Creator or an Agency and are looking to grow your business in 2018, then these 7 tips are the foundation:

Tip 1: Stop Complaining – Gary Vaynerchuk

I left South Africa to arrive in the US in 2016. In the USA, the competition is fierce. People with crappy content have thousands of more followers and subscribers and years of a head start. So what?

There will always be bigger channels. Always someone better, faster, stronger. If you keep your entire attention on their stats, if you keep complaining about what they are doing and why they get away with XYZ then you are have lost before you even begin.

Stop complaining, run your own race and change your own game. It’s the only thing you CAN control.

Lesson: Just do and stop complaining.

Tip 2: You Don’t need to be special – Peter McKinnon

For those who don’t know Peter, he is a videographer, photographer and his channel grew to 1.5 million subscribers in a very short period of time.

Some would look at Peter as an “overnight success” and he is an expert or a professional so it’s easy for him.

People don’t know that Peter had 18 years of experience of working at various jobs before figuring out what he wanted to do. Only then he became the full-time YouTuber.

Peter s a regular guy who worked regular jobs until he went full time with his skills.

Lesson: Find a way to combine his passion and skill.

Tip 3: Be Specific Or You will Please No One – Roberto Blake

When you set out to be a content creator, you have to get real real fast. If you can’t answer the questions of who you are, what is your channel about, who is your audience and how you will package your content, then it’s going to be a rough ride.

Roberto Blake covers this topic extensively and has amazing content dealing with personal branding and delving into these:

Lesson: know thy audience.

Tip 4: Even the Pros have bloopers – Tim Schmoyer

Creating content isn’t simple. The more you create, the more you want to create but it’s a process. Need to decide on the topic, research the info, write some talking filming it, editing it, and then posting it and market it.

It can get frustrating.

But when you watch someone like Tim Schmoyer pull back the curtain and show his process, you realize everyone – yes even the pros – screw it up repeatedly. He revises his lines, tries different angles. He doesn’t nail it first time every time. And that is ok.

Check out Tim’s channel for an entire library of practical videos to up your YouTube game.

Lesson: Stopped being so hard on yourself – its ok to re-do.It’s a process.

Tip 5: Unsexy But It Needs to be done – Derral Eves

Don’t like maths? Me neither but if you want any success, you need to understand the platform that you are on and how it works to attract your audience.

It all boils down to the algorithm and understanding how everything has an effect on everything else.

Derral Eves has many videos about building your channel, such as this one on the algorithm:

Lesson: spend time in your analytics so can build your channel

Tip 6: Get Personal – Shonduras

If you think you can jump in and just create content and it will go viral, then I have some bad news. It is very rare.

In the real world, we choose to hang with some people because we like them, their stories, they make us laugh, they are good people. Same online.

If you want to see a prime example of how to make a connection with the audience, then Shonduras is your guy.

Shonduras has the right balance between making a connection with the audience and being entertaining and educating and nothing gets more real than this video:

Lesson: Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.

Tip 7: Telling a Story – Casey Neistat

When it comes to storytelling, I look at Casey Neistat.

Casey has figured out the way to take a viewer on a journey regardless of the content. Some of Casey’s videos are just entertainment, some are reviews, some are commentary about current events and some are just following Casey’s travel to his next speaking gig. Regardless of the content, Casey makes you feel like you are a friend coming along for the ride.